Limit Omaha Hi - general advice wanted

[Choparno]

Any advice on where I can find resources on how to play Limit Omaha Hi?

My local casino spreads a 10/20 Texas/Omaha lap of each game. They play one round of limit hold'em, one round of limit Omaha. It is a soft game, and I'm confident I'm the best hold'em player in the game, but I'm equally sure that I'm losing in the game up to this point because of my Omaha inexperience.

The Omaha round typically has 6-7 players seeing every flop, with most of those also seeing the turn, lots of gambling and fishing for miracle cards, etc. I've read about how to play PLO - e.g., Lyle Berman's chapter in SSII - but most of the advice does not seem to apply to limit. I am not, as you can tell, an Omaha player.

The only two strategy articles I've read are this one: http://www.interpoker.com/strategy/o...strategy.shtml and this one: http://www.pokertips.org/strategy/ll-omaha.php

In line with this advice, I have played super-tight, folding a lot of hands pre-flop or on the flop, but still find myself losing as a result of big hands that don't hold up (e.g. top set) or big draws that miss. I have only played approximately 100 hours in this game (50 at Omaha), but I lack the experience to tell whether I am running bad or have serious leaks.

Where do I go to learn more?

[HOWMANY]

I've never played, but I'm guessing a main difference between limit and PL Omaha hi is that second and third nut hands are more valuable in limit since the penalty for making one and paying off isn't as bad. I would also guess that straights go down in value as a result of it being correct for opponents to draw to weaker flushes/underfulls if they know you have a straight.

There's probably a lot more, but since I've never played the game I can't really make up much more that would be even close to accurate.

[Choparno]

In my (very limited) experience so far, second- and third-nut hands are almost worthless. Because so many people are calling and so many hands go to showdown, the nuts are almost always out there. I've been trapped, for example, calling down out of the blinds with the third-nut flush only to inevitably be shown the nuts.

[Phat Mack]

Your's is a hard question to answer briefly, but I'll try to point out a couple of things.

You want to play more high cards in the game you describe than in PLO. 9987ss can be big in PLO, but goes down in value in these games. It's harder to control the size of the pot and the number of players, so you are going to need bigger hands.

[ QUOTE ]
but still find myself losing as a result of big hands that don't hold up (e.g. top set) or big draws that miss.

[/ QUOTE ]

Top set may not be a big hand in this game, it may just be a draw. Top set is always drawing to a board pair, but it is also drawing to no flush and no straight. Therefore, a) if you flop top set on a rainbow board it is more valuable than a suited board; b) it is better on an uncoordinated board; and c) you must play coordinated hands. If the flop is K92r, and you have KKQJ, you have 4 extra outs that you wouldn't have if you were playing KK73.

Pay attention to the culture of the table (aka Shania). Is the hold 'em round making the omaha round looser? Is the omaha round making the hold 'em round tighter? Knowing this can guide your play. What is considered a big hand in Omaha? Top pair? Top two? Middle set? If the players are jamming with TPTK, you'll have to get in there and jam along with them, or lose your action.

You might try checking the archives here and in RGP. There has been some limit omaha high stuff, but not much.

GL

[KSOT]

I've played a good amount of limit Omaha on Party and I have a good winrate. I pretty much just jam the pot with sets and fish with any nut draws since you're almost always getting the right odds. Also don't be afraid to raise big draws in multiway pots when your equity permits it. I think that is where a lot of my profit comes from. Hands like two pair and TPTK gets you into way too much trouble when NOBODY folds, so I usually don't even bother with them. I mean I'll bet top two on a safe board, but I don't ever get my hopes up about it.

Also don't underestimate the importance of tight hand selection. Being suited is extremely important in Omaha and you'd prefer youd cards to be close to one another. Axs is your best friend. Do not overvalue AA because you know you're usually having a multiway showdown and they're rarely the best hand by then.

Variance in this game is HUGE, so you could just be unloucky right now for all you'd know.

[Yads]

Be prepared for massive variance. PLO has high variance, but limit Omaha has such a humongous luck component that your variance goes through the roof. I would just play ridiculously tight.

[Johnny#5]

Limit Omaha Hi is like playing the lottery. Just about every draw always has odds to continue so basically it's playing a game of hoping your river card falls instead of the other guy's. Unless your opponents are retarded (which at 10/20 live, they very well may be) you can't really outplay them that much. Just make sure you're always on nut draws and not chasing things like underfulls or Queen-high flushes and the like.

Try to pick preflop hands that can make the absolute nuts, things like suited aces, paint pairs and wraps. What hands you should raise preflop? I never really figured that one out ... raising preflop turns it into a total crapshoot where you just deal them all out and see what wins. Raising pre trades a small amount of EV for a lot of variance in a game with enormous variance as it is.

This game can be very frustrating ... you can lose 30, 50, 80 bets in a single session very easily while playing better than all of your opponents. If bankroll is at all an issue ... if losing, say, 100 bets makes a big dent, then I would play tight during the omaha to reduce variance and exploit my edges at hold'em where a solid player has a larger advantage anyway IMO.

[Choparno]

Thanks for the advice all.

Your comments have confirmed my view about the massively high degree of variance in the game. As a hold'em player, who finds the variance in limit hold'em difficult enough, I think the higher variance in this game has also made it psychologically more difficult for me as well.

A pro I spoke to said you should have a 10k bankroll for this game, which I don't yet have. Losing 25 to 50 big bets in a session hurts, and it sounds as though that could be quite common, so perhaps I should just wait until I have the appropriate bankroll.

Thanks again.

[Johnny#5]

I don't think there's much info at all out there on this game ... it's kind of a weird thing where the postflop strategy and odds are all intuitive and straightforward and the preflop hand evaluation is much less intuitive.

Position is much less important in limit omaha than in PLO since the pots are so big and so contested that you can't put much pressure on anybody, and you can't control the pot size that much in position either b/c everyone plays staight up and if their hand is promising, money is going in regardless of position.

A couple of hands you will quickly find out are troublesome in limit omaha (IMO):

1) Bottom set. You fart on this hand and it's gonna get cracked. You flop bottom set and you have to dodge all kinds of things, e.g. anyone with top 2 ruins your boat draw, there will usually be some sort of straight draw out there, goofy crap like backdoor flushes and turned higher sets, basically every card in the deck will scare you. Middle set is better but still a little scary. Bottom set can be a big money loser and I would fold small pairs preflop bacause IMO bottom set isn't worth the headaches.

2) Flopped straights without redraws. I mean, you have the nuts, but you can be in a lot of trouble if the flop action gets heated. If everyone is jamming in a 4-way pot then you should be afraid ... someone else could share your straight with you and you are vulnerable to being outdrawn by higher straights, flushes, and boats. When you flop a straight, be aware that your hand is fragile. You should continue with them, but with no protection there are so many ways it can lose and you may not even be an equity favorite on the flop. Also, counterfeitable straight draws (e.g. 89xx on a Q76 flop instead of 89Tx) can be trouble as well.

Top set is a monster in this game and should be pressed hard ... but even then, if your set is the nuts on the flop, you can expect to lose with it close to half the time. Just the way it goes. Top 2 you pretty much just hope for the best though, if the flop texture and action make you smell a set you need to get out fast. It helps if you have an overcard or two to your top 2. Nut flush draws are big winners in this game and flush draw + any other kind of draw is a monster on the flop.

[Tom Bayes]

I dislike limit Omaha high. There's a private game in my town that's the same setup, $10/$20 half limit holdem/half limit omaha high. Everyone is right. LOH has huge variance and little opportunity to outplay your opponents beyond showing better hand selection than them and getting away from the trap hands that they can't. Expect the gamb00ler types in the game to play every hand, chase any draw and any piece of the flop all the way, and for these guys to suck out just enough to give you an ulcer.